Shelby on Putting Non-ideal/Ideal into practice

By Anonymous

 

I find great value in Shelby's ability to go from theory to application in this book. He looks at one of America's most pressing historical and modern problems -- Black ghettos -- and tries to look at the problem through a lens of liberal-egalitarian theory and conceptions of justice. He does this by using nonideal theory specifically, and rather than spending his time deriving an ideal framework (for which he relies on Rawls) he figures out how to identify where injustice is occurring in the racial phenomenon that plagues our nation. Furthermore, he does this not by looking at material consequences of unjust structures --a method many use that lead them to trying to figure out how to fix the most urgent problems, typically absolute poverty. The latter method seems similar to utilitarianism. One looks at the status of society and sees that there is suffering going on and tries to cure the suffering as best possible. There seems to be great utility / good in this framework. But Shelby argues that there would be an unjust disadvantage blind spot by doing this that would perpetuate a system of injustice. It seems like it would only be a band-aid for the problem. Shelby writes in the Introduction, "focusing on the problems of the disadvantaged can di- vert attention from or obscure the numerous ways in which the advantaged unfairly benefit from an unjust social structure" (3). So looking at the problem through a framework of justice could lead to real solutions that actually get at corrective justice and the causes of the unjust situations that exist -- rather than just using some of the benefits that the better off have to make the problem less bad. 

As someone who spends a lot of time trying to do this, I am particularly intrigued. Noticing that there was severe educational inequity in my community, me and my peers in high school began devoting time to tutor students in the community that lacked the educational resources like access to tutors. We often used the phrase "this is all of our problem" to show that seeing our peers attend school at a disadvantage should invoke a sense in us to treat the problem like it is ours just as much as it it our disadvantaged peers. 

In developing my own personal theory, after seeing the benefits of the tutoring and seeing how other problems in society could potentially be solved through a similar mindset, I have developed lots of questions around it that I think Shelby may also have to address. 

In chapter 2 Shelby discusses how one potential solution to racial residential segregation that perpetuates historically unjust inequality is integration. This doesn't have to be reliant on Blacks, but could be done on part of whites. He writes "So if there is an obligation to reduce black concentrated poverty through residential integration, then these cultural and political preferences must be outweighed by the duty of justice" (57). The concept of using the duty of injustice as a reason that white advantaged people should be doing far more than they are doing now to support just institutions and reject unjust institutions could be applied in many areas. It could potentially be applied to tutoring students in disadvantaged neighborhoods, shopping at Black owned businesses, and even affirmative action. If people recognized the truth--that they might be benefitting from historical and modern injustice and that there are many people who are living lower standards of life (economically) and suffering from injustice in return--they should be incentivized to do something about it. 

But right now not nearly enough people do something about it. Shelby argument for a duty of justice seems great. But why isn't it working? Christopher Lebron argues a similar thing, that people hold ideals of justice in America but aren't upholding those in their life and thus should feel shame and fix them. So, do people not know that they, just be living, might be taking part in unjust institutions and perpetuating inequality and injustice? Or, if they do know, do they not care? Or, if they do know and do care, is it just too difficult to do something about it?

There could be a few reasons it is too difficult to do something about it. Reasons that are strong enough to show that people have odds stacked against them, severely making it hard to do something. For one, doing something may be extremely difficult. For example, deciding to live in an area that is more economically deprived for the sake of integration appears like an extremely challenging life choice. People, even if if they care about justice, are likely not willing to allow their kids to go to lower resources schools for the sake of it. Second, there may not be many opportunities to easily reject unjust structures. If someone wants to do something about it, it isn't entirely obvious what they should do. There are many students at the 5Cs who jumped to sign up to tutor local students to battle inequity. But I imagine that before our tutoring nonprofit came to campus they didn't have the opportunity to contribute in this way. 

Ultimately I really resonate with Shelby's "duty for justice". I just question why that duty isn't being followed and what would be needed to get people to follow it.

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